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Blake West:

Learning to play an instrument is hard, but sheet music makes it even harder. I’ve taught dozens of students, ages 4 to 60, and traditional music notation never comes easily. It can often take months (or longer) to pick up. Worse yet, those frustrations often lead to thoughts like, “I’m bad at music.” It’s tough to hear; as their teacher, I know that’s not true. The sheet music just isn’t intuitive. And that shouldn’t be the hard part—when you read a great book, you think about the *meaning*, not which letter is which.

Whoa, Hummingbird seems like something even I could wrap my head around. Also: It’s beautiful.